Learn the Basic and Advanced Jenkins Interview Questions

With the rise of DevOps-based work positions, there has been an increase in the need for people who would be efficient in automated testing and development programs, like Selenium or Jenkins. These job positions usually offer great advantages, such as extended career opportunities and constantly rising salaries. It is no wonder that more and more people choose to aim at these job positions. However, to ace the job interview, these people need to prepare. And what better way to prepare than by studying Jenkins interview questions?

The Basis Of Jenkins

The questions being “basic” does not mean that they’re not important, though - if you flunk these, you’re probably not going to make it to the more advanced ones, anyway. So, pay close attention and memorize - let’s take it from the top.

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Question 1: What is Jenkins?

To put it very simply, Jenkins is an open-source, continuous integration-focused, Java-based automation server. If you’re a developer who is constantly creating new programs and various software, yet you’re not using Jenkins - you’re missing out big time. Jenkins allows developers to test their programs on the go, all while allowing to integrate upgrades and additional features through ought the process.

Question 2: Why should developers use Jenkins?

As one of the introductory Jenkins interview questions, your potential employers might want to check what you deem to be the most important feature of Jenkins. Even though the answer seems to be very subjective, here are a few examples that you can consider:

• Easy to catch bugs early on;
• An automated testing process;
• Continuous integration.

Question 3: What is ‘automated testing’?

One of the main features (if not the main one!) that Jenkins is famous for is its automated testing function. It’s easy to read this online and then simply memorize that phrase just to blurt it out as an answer during one of the employer’s Jenkins interview questions. However, what if there’s this follow-up? As a concept, automated testing has become so popular that it is almost automatically assumed (no pun intended) that everyone should know what it is.

Automated testing is when a certain program (framework) tests your developed programs (web applications) without the need for human interference.

This is amazing because of several reasons - a lot of money and time are saved, testing happens much faster, there’s no room for any human-made error.

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Question 4: What is ‘continuous integration’?

Another popular concept, especially if the job that you’re preparing for with these Jenkins interview questions is somehow related to the DevOps philosophy.

Continuous integration is a process when multiple tests are performed on a single project daily. This is done because there’s usually way more than one developer working on the project (program, app, etc.).

Question 5: What do you need to start using Jenkins?

There are two basic requirements to start using Jenkins - a viable source code repository and a build script that’s registered on that repository.

However, there are also two software requirements before you install the Jenkins - Java Development Kit and Jakarta: Enterprise Edition.

Question 6: What is the default security mechanism for user authentication?

Although at first glance this might seem like one of the more advanced Jenkins interview questions, it’s pretty simple when you think about it.

You have a couple of options to choose from when it comes to identifying the user, but the default function in Jenkins is to store user data in the inner database.

Question 7: Name at least two of the most popular plugins for Jenkins.

Maven and Git are probably two of the most popular Jenkins plugins to date.

Question 8: How do you back up your files?

The JENKINS-HOME directory contains all of your configurations. This means that the only thing that you need to do to keep your files safe and clean from any issues is to back up the directory.

Question 9: What is a ‘pipeline’?

The term “pipeline” is used to describe the process from a project's earliest development stages to its release to the public.

Question 10: What are the three fundamental stages of a Jenkins pipeline?

Build the project, test the project and then deploy the project.

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Advanced Jenkins Interview Questions

Those were ten examples of what a typical beginning of your Jenkins job interview could look like. As you probably noticed, the questions are quite simple - they’re designed to check your general knowledge about Jenkins, automation, DevOps and so on.

These questions and answers are designed to check just how in-depth does your knowledge of the topic goes. Also, when it comes to these interview questions on Jenkins, they aren’t all necessarily super difficult - they’re simply much more technical.

Question 11: How does Hudson relate to Jenkins?

This is one of the more interesting Jenkins interview questions - it doesn’t only check the technical research that you’ve done on Jenkins, but also how deep have you dug when it comes to the program’s history.

A long time ago, Hudson was the official name (an earlier version) of what is now known as Jenkins.

Question 12: Name two ways of how you could schedule a build.

You could either issue commits to the management of the source code or if you wish, you could manually request the builds.

Question 13: What are some of the most popular environment variables?

Keeping in mind that question most likely relates to Jenkins to build jobs, there are a lot of elemental variables that you could choose from. Here are a few of the more well-known ones:

• $JOB_NAME
• $JOB_URL
• $WORKSPACE

Question 14: How would you move a file from one server to the other?

This is considered to be one of the advanced Jenkins interview questions mainly because there can be quite a few possible answers to it. However, if you want to keep it as simple as possible (which is quite advisable), there’s a very straightforward answer - simply copy the job directory and paste it in the other server.

Question 15: Should you use Jenkins together with Selenium?

Yes, it’s quite beneficial - this type of combination runs immediate tests every single time that your program changes or alters in some way.

Question 16: What are the best ways to make sure that your Jenkins database is secure?

There are plenty of ways to ensure security is of the top level when it comes Jenkins, but some of the more notable ones include (but are not limited to) keeping global security on, running security checks, keeping your database protected on the physical level (not letting unauthorized personnel near it), etc. Cybersecurity is becoming a very relevant problem and knowledge of it will surely add-up in the Jenkins interview questions.

Question 17: What is Ansible?

Ansible is a configuration management tool that can be used for provisioning and can be implemented into Jenkins.

Question 18: What is an ‘agent’?

An “agent” can be seen as a point of reference - it specifies a point in the pipeline in which Jenkins will be launched.

Question 19: What is ‘Jenkinsfile’?

It is a text file containing all of the information about the project’s pipeline. It should always be implemented into source control.

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Question 20: What is the command to manually start Jenkins?

jenkins.exe start

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Conclusions

In this tutorial, we have talked about the basics that you should know when thinking about your Jenkins job interview, covered some of the more popular Jenkins interview questions for experienced developers and discussed what is Jenkins overall. I’ve also provided you with some general tips that you could apply before, during and after your job interview.

As the philosophy of DevOps is becoming more popular and widespread, the need for qualified developers is rising. Since DevOps is a wide term, such developers are required to possess an equally wide range of abilities - knowing how to use Jenkins is one of them. Since the concept of automation is taking the programming and development world by storm, tools like Jenkins and Selenium are becoming essential if you want to keep up with the market. This, in turn, creates great job opportunities. Be sure to check out BitDegree courses and tutorials sections for more useful information and guidelines!